Millennials and older Aussies 'outraged' by homebuyer's simple question about device
The once-common device has baffled a young home buyer.
A first-time home buyer has horrified Millennials everywhere — potentially causing some to enter mid-life crises — after asking what a mysterious wall attachment is. The beige-coloured contraption, which is screwed into a wall, contains several slots and completely baffled the new property owner.
"What is this? Have never seen this type of connection in my life. Can anyone enlighten me as to the use of this?" the Reddit user innocently wrote, sparking uproar among Aussies.
Redditors went into meltdown at the lack of knowledge around commonplace items from years gone by. "Oh my God. That's it. I'm dead. This is no criticism of you — more of feeling frickin' geriatric," one horrified user responded to the original poster (aka OP).
One cranky Aussie joked, "I am outraged that I'm being made to feel so ancient. I will write a telegram to the Postmaster-General to complain." Another agreed, "OP just made a whole generation feel old. Thanks OP, hope you are happy."
"It's a phone connection for the old landline," someone kindly explained. "The phone itself had a plug that fitted in it. They were decommissioned as NBN rolled through."
It was also pointed out that the device has the Telecom logo on it, another throwback to a generation before Australia's main telecommunications operator evolved into the Telstra we know today.
Relic of the landline era
A Telstra spokesman told Yahoo News Australia that as of June this year, the company had 316,000 active home and business landlines across the country. This number was in the millions three decades ago as "almost all homes in the early '90s had a landline phone connection" before households began ditching landlines for mobile phones.
The spokesperson said the old-style connectors aren't sold anymore, with most homes using new modem designs, but customers with the original ports could still access the network using a "handy little adaptor". He also provided the above diagram to show how the adaptors work with the old ports.
"Also, a little fun fact about that particular old-style port, this was a port standard designed and used exclusively in Australia," he added.
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